Mulally Voices Support for Mercury, Sort Of

Can Lincoln work as a standalone brand ala Infiniti, Cadillac, and Lexus? I don't know that it can, not with the product mix it has now.

Other than the Escalade, Cadillac offers cars that share no body shells with other GM products, and its volume leader, the CTS, shares its body and rear drive layout with no other North American product.

Lincoln has only one such product, the ancient Town Car, beloved of the car service crowd, but few others. The rest of its lineup is oddly restyled versions of Ford vehicles that offer little but a higher price tag.

So Mercury's raison d'etre is to give Lincoln dealers low cost offerings. Unfortunately, they are all barely restyled versions of Ford vehicles, bringing to mind the worst days of GM selling the same car with slightly different nose, tail and dash across Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, and Olds. At least Ford only produces the same car 2x instead of 4.

If Ford can't give Mercury at least a couple cars of its very own (other than the Grand Marquis [alas, still without a De Sade trim package]) then they should just kill it and spend it's budget making Lincoln a true competitor in the premium sedan market.

"Ford is working to more effectively position Mercury with smaller vehicles that occupy the void between the mainstream Ford brand and Lincoln"

GM is trying to do the same thing with Buick, except they aren't moving Chevy upmarket like Ford is. Both the new Focus and the Fiesta have more expensive trim levels to compete in the "premium" market. If Mercury wants to survive they may have to move more upmarket, which would be bad for Lincoln. I say get rid of Mercury and market the smaller cars as Lincolns.

Mercury has always had this identity; of being the in-between brand for Ford. As far back as I can remember, they've offered only a handful of models that were exclusive to the Mercury brand. The late 90's Cougar being one of them. So for Mulally and Ford to say that they're working on making Mercury into a brand to "fill the gap" between Ford and Lincoln is a total BS excuse.

I made this point on the Buick Regal blog the other week, and I'll make it here again: the business model in parts of the automotive world that says there should be a brand dedicated as "in-between" mainstream and luxury status is outdated and needs to be put to pasture. This model doesn't work because it creates too much overlapping product that dilutes the identity of all brands involved and has been proven to be economically infeasible. It cannibalizes sales of the overlapping products. The division requires additional engineering, marketing, sales, and support staff in order to function. And the sales that this in-between brand generates doesn't warrant the efforts of supporting and funding it. Those sales could easily be shifted up or down the level of offerings.

This is why, in the long-term, Buick will fail to be successful and turn a profit here in the States. The same goes for Mercury. All consumer demand can be better taken care of by offering two brands: a mainstream, and a luxury. Kill Mercury before it saps more resources.

Useless as Mercury may be, it may cost more at this point to dismantle it than to keep it going. It doesn't take much effort for Ford to make rebadged Fords for the Lincoln dealers. But given the past few years, it doesn't look like Mercury is getting anything new or unique. So sure, the glory days are gone, but I don't think taking down Mercury without taking Lincoln with it would save Ford all that much money.

xprojected says:

"Useless as Mercury may be, it may cost more at this point to dismantle it than to keep it going. It doesn't take much effort for Ford to make rebadged Fords for the Lincoln dealers. But given the past few years, it doesn't look like Mercury is getting anything new or unique. So sure, the glory days are gone, but I don't think taking down Mercury without taking Lincoln with it would save Ford all that much money."

How so? Since all Mercurys are rebadged Fords, then why go through all the trouble to keep up the facade any longer? Even if it costs more at this point to keep Mercury afloat, it will ultimately cost Ford in the long run.

Agreed mrryte. There's an old Turkish proverb that goes something like this: Reversing losses at whatever point is a profit. Meaning that the best thing to do when headed down the wrong path is to back up. The long-term cost will far exceed the dismantling of Mercury now. Economically, it makes the most sense to get rid of them when the money is available to do so, not when they enter bankruptcy or are strapped for cash and need to unload them in a hurry.

At this point, Ford could help reduce the cost of axing the brand by selling off parts of the Mercury division and use the proceeds to subsidize the whole thing. Production facilities, logistics, even white collared workers could all be sold in an agreement with another manufacturer. Heck, even the selling of the entire brand could be feasible now, while they still have a bit of value left. But continuing down the same path is dooming yourself to ruin.

I've always thought Mercury could be something special for Ford but it's easy to see Ford didn't agree with me. Mercury has no interesting products and sadly no future.

It would cost very little to just stop sticking Mercury badges on Fords.

Looking at the Lincoln line up, I can see it going the same way. Unlike Cadillac, they have nothing special worthy of a premium brand.

Ford has done a good job improving Fords but they need to do something with Mercury right away or just drop it. Lincoln is an even bigger problem, people should dream that someday they will own your premium product... I serious doubt anyone dreams of a Lincoln.

firstwagon, I agree. As bad as things got for Cadillac, except for the Cimmeron debacle in the 80's, Cadillacs were always their own cars, often with Cadillac only engines. Cadillac is the best example of GM doing things right. The STS as a bridge between the senior citizen cars it had been making and something to compete with Mercedes. The bringing the weak Catera to go after BMW and Audi and sticking with the idea and ultimately building the standout CTS.

Unfortunately Lincoln has been mostly brand engineering for years, and it's attempt to compete with the sport sedan crowd, the LS, was a better try than the Catera, but Ford gave up when it didn't become a big seller, instead of refining it and staying the course.

Cadillac retained some of its glamour from the days when its name literally defined excellence. By the 1990's those days were long behind it. But GM's management made some good decisions (even a broken watch is right 2x a day) and Cadillac has become a viable alternative in premium and performance sedan market.

Is Lincoln a 'once proud brand' like Cadillac? I'm 44, not a kid and a long-time car lover and I have no image of Lincoln as a standard of anything. The first couple Mark coupes and the early 60's 4-door Continental Convertible were cool. The brand was celebrated in a great hillbilly rock and roll song. But really, the name carries no more prestige, faded or otherwise, than Hyundai. Its primary claim to fame right now seems to be as the USA's preeminent supplier of luxury taxis.

Like I said above, Ford would be far better off to scrap Mercury and use the money to upgrade Lincoln's vehicles and image.